How to refine that stuff

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It's a firm copper that breaks when bent quickly rather than bending, and dissolves away completely when a small piece is put in nitric, rather than making the metastannic goo.
That is close to CuBe description, but it would still be good to rule out brass by melting small piece and observing ZnO fumes (obvious). Anyway, if you will follow general safety, you will be fine.
 
The pins I got from the nuclear launch control boards all have Be-Cu cores. I'm puzzling over how to process them. The plating on them is so incredibly thick, nearly as thick as a sheet of notebook paper. But the Be... it's so nasty.
Perhaps you can remove the plating mechanically. Did see or read something similar. Think it was Sovjet pins were the plating were cut up and piled off. It was possible due to the thick plating.
 
Perhaps you can remove the plating mechanically. Did see or read something similar. Think it was Sovjet pins were the plating were cut up and piled off. It was possible due to the thick plating.
this could be very wasteful. At least, I cannot imagine to strip any "soviet pins" like this, and I processed a lot of them :)
 
And yeah, cyanide is always here to help (more or less) when you don´t want to dissolve the base. KI/I2 is also doable, altough thick platings can take forever with I2/KI. And if the material isn´t homogenous, leach will bore a hole in the plating somewhere and start to chew the CuBe instead of gold. Or start to corrode already stripped pin, while the others are still covered with gold.
 
And yeah, cyanide is always here to help (more or less) when you don´t want to dissolve the base. KI/I2 is also doable, altough thick platings can take forever with I2/KI. And if the material isn´t homogenous, leach will bore a hole in the plating somewhere and start to chew the CuBe instead of gold. Or start to corrode already stripped pin, while the others are still covered with gold.
Dear Orvi,
I finallly decided to scratch out the bond wires of the RF transistors.After The BeO cap was easyl removed with a hot air gun.
I was afraid to treat the rest of the gold plating with acide, because of the BeO.
So i did decide to try it with iodine. I did prepare about 3 litres of solution. After going the Vitamin C way i had a good amount of sludge in the beaker.
After melting this in my induction oven i did find a small pearl of gold, about 1 g, in the grafite pot. And lots of biger perals of black material, about 6 g, also.
It turned out that this stuff was magnetic. This was the nicle plating of the copper heat sinks. Iodine is also verry strong on iron and nicle. 🤣
 
Dear Orvi,
I finallly decided to scratch out the bond wires of the RF transistors.After The BeO cap was easyl removed with a hot air gun.
I was afraid to treat the rest of the gold plating with acide, because of the BeO.
So i did decide to try it with iodine. I did prepare about 3 litres of solution. After going the Vitamin C way i had a good amount of sludge in the beaker.
After melting this in my induction oven i did find a small pearl of gold, about 1 g, in the grafite pot. And lots of biger perals of black material, about 6 g, also.
It turned out that this stuff was magnetic. This was the nicle plating of the copper heat sinks. Iodine is also verry strong on iron and nicle. 🤣
Edit by moderator: Removed double quote.
 

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This is how i did treat the gold plated coils. Did disolve with sodium peroxodisulphate. End up with 0.2 g/100g gold and a lot of copper sulfate.
 
Is there any magnetic property to these coils?

You can do these in a sulfuric stripping cell.
Watch current and do not over heat or over process, keep it cool.

I would also try a sample in Iodine just like you did the other parts, your dealing with plate here.
No need to go too far, Gold off the copper, copper is use full scrap to have on hand.
 
Would a leach be better than what???
I guess my question is : Would a leach of some sort be better than heat, mechanical or acid for components that have beryllium? I have no experience that would indicate it would be. The experience however in the forum is great, and I am more curious than anything. Is there a leach that would prefer the gold over beryllium ?
 
I guess my question is : Would a leach of some sort be better than heat, mechanical or acid for components that have beryllium?
That would depend on if it is BeO or a BeCu alloy?

BeO components would probably be best to leach.
BeCu without knowing, I'd guess some kind of deplating by Cyanide or Iodine/Iodide would be preferential.
 

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